Me and a Gun
by Whoever-Typed-This-Up
Summary: Brian Kinney thinks upon his experiences with weapons. Set sometime after season four. One-shot.


Me and a Gun

I was nine years old when I had my first experience with a weapon. This was before I met Michael, when we lived in another area. It was like where Justin had lived, except more religious. I could walk to church in the time it took a standard commercial to air on the TV. There was also a golf course near our house. This golf course was surrounded by a forest, like Saturn is surrounded by rings. Teenagers used to hang about there a lot, because the forest was dense and you could always hear someone coming and hide before they knew you were there. So it was good if you wanted to finger some girl up against a tree, while your dad and his friends played on the eighteenth green. It was also good if you wanted to hide shit. The local dealer, Joe, made all of his transactions in the forest. You paid him some money, and he'd give you the coordinates to his stash. He knew the forest like the back of his hand, because he spent months figuring out the best, yet most convenient, hiding place. He was also the groundskeeper for the golf course. And Joe had a son named William, also known as Billy Joe, who was in the year below me at school. Billy Joe was a fucked up kid. He scared the shit out of me. He was the one who showed me a gun.

I remember that Billy Joe didn't have a lot of friends, because when your parents figured out who his father was, you were banned from seeing him. And for once, you agreed with your parents. Billy Joe was fucking terrifying. But no-one had the guts to say no when he invited you to come and see something. Everyone knew that it would be the most disturbing sight of their life, but no-one could say no. Even me. But I was nine. I couldn't even hold a pen. And so, when Billy Joe approached me and my friends and told us to follow him into the forest to 'see something cool', we said: Okay.

Okay.

I won't bore you. It's quite simple. There was a hollow tree somewhere in the forest, and he stuck his hand in and pulled out a gun. He pointed it at us, and laughed. And then he let us hold it. And then he told us stories about his dad and that gun, and later on, we heard some stories, too. Rumor has it that Joe killed Billy Joe's mom with that gun, and that, later on, Billy Joe killed his dad with that gun before he killed himself. Now, I don't know about his mom, but I do know that his dad is alive. Billy Joe died when he was sixteen. It was a heroin overdose. I read about it in a local newspaper. It wasn't much of a loss. Billy Joe would've become an asshole like his dad, and his dad was enough.

In conclusion: I was nine, I saw a gun, it belonged to a local dealer and was shown to me by his son. And it verified my suspicion that I wanted nothing to do with violence when I was older. My dad probably helped with that. Jack beat that sense - that awareness, that fear - into me. Good ol' Jack.

Fucker.

My second experience with a gun was when I was nineteen, almost twenty. I had met Lindsay, and I was so taken with her. She was the first girl I liked. But I met a lot of people at college, and I liked a lot of them. One of my good friends was a guy named Oscar. He was three years older than the rest of us, and he had learning difficulties. And he was funny. He didn't take shit too seriously. He was a good guy to be with. He threw nice parties, and he never made a pass at Lindsay. And he never blinked an eye when she admitted she preferred girls. And I liked him. I would have fucked him, because he was pretty like Justin is pretty. He had long eyelashes and pouty blow-job lips and, according to some of his old girlfriends, was well hung. And I knew he had tried really hard to get to college, because he had been told his entire life that he wouldn't make it because he was 'challenged'. I told him not to fucking listen, and he tried at that, too. And one night, I went to his dorm to take him for pizza. He had told me that he felt unwell and wouldn't come out that night, but I had always pushed him and so I went to his dorm anyway and I found him on the floor with his brain splattered across the wall and a gun at his hand and a note pinned to chest and I wanted to cry for the first time since I was sixteen and left home with my dad shouting at my back. And I don't know why I'm telling you all of this. Oscar was a friend, and I liked him. And because he felt less than everyone else, he killed himself. And I was the fucking lucky one who found him. And now I fucking hate him, because I shouldn't have to deal with that shit.

Fucker.

My fourth experience with a gun was with Justin. And the less said about that, the better. Because I can think about some things, but not everything. I can talk about some things, too. Even with Justin. One night, we got stoned and I talked to him about my mom. And a year later I told him about my dad. And I got scared, and I got angry, and all he did was look at me. And then he pulled me close and said: "I love you." And I don't know why that made it better, but it did. And so I don't like to think about Justin when he's scared and angry, because I know that I can't use those three words and magically make it all disappear.

He used to cut himself. He told Daphne afterwards. I never told Jennifer, and I don't think he did either. After he was bashed, for three months he cut himself. And I let him. Those cuts gave him that magical relief that I couldn't, and so I let him. We talked about it twice. The first time: "Did you do those yourself?" "No." "Don't fucking lie to me." "I didn't do it!" And the second time: "I want you to stop." "Okay." "Will you?" "I don't know." The second time was after I came home and found him on the bathroom floor. He had cut too deeply, and was out of it because of the blood loss. I took him to the hospital, and then took him home. Before then, he had been safe, if you can call it that. I don't really want to think about this. We never talked about it again. I want to stop talking like this.

. . .

I don't like violence. I won't be hit. I don't mind if sex is rough, because that's fun and that's hot. I like that. I know I like that. And I can't get enough of it. I've had enough of being hit and feeling pain and of hiding. I didn't like it when Justin became angry and wanted to hit and be hit, and cause pain and feel pain and not hide from any of it. It hurt me that he wanted it like that.

I don't like anything that causes violence. If Gus ever sees a gun, I hope he'll take to me about it. Or to Lindsay. Or Melanie. Justin. Michael. Ben. Fucking Emmett. I don't want him to push his fear down like a nuclear weapon under his skin. I did that once.

Fucker.

My third experience, I was twenty. This was four months after Oscar killed himself. I was frustrated, because I couldn't understand. So I sat on the floor of my dorm with a gun. I can't remember where I got it from. I had some low friends and unreliable dealers then. For the right price, I could have had a gun. I suppose.

Someone found me later on, took the gun away from me and took me to Lindsay. Nobody told her what had happened. They said I looked rough. I needed a friend.

For months afterwards, I wondered. I still wonder.

There was me and a gun, and I couldn't fathom why anyone would want one. You can shoot deer, but what the fuck can a twisted eight year old, a depressed twenty two year old or a fucking psychotic twenty year old want with a gun? What could I want with a gun?

I hope you know that I don't like thinking about this. I like to push this shit away, and live in the moments that don't hurt so much. But I think that, when I think about these things, the moments that don't hurt become so much better. Because when you compare the good to the bad, the good is bottled Nirvana.

Because when Michael dedicates his Eisner Award to me, or when Gus sends me a card on Father's Day or when Justin raises his head from his book or sketchpad to search for me, so that when he finds me he can give me that fucking sunshine smile, the other shit doesn't matter. The gun in my hand doesn't matter. Because it's me and Michael. Me and Gus. Me and Justin. It's me and that other part that makes it okay.

Okay?

* * *

_Author's Note: There is no excuse for this. I was watching the fourth season - which is the worst season of them all, except for that those later episodes in the second season with Justin and Ethan - and I was wondering about Brian and guns._

_I probably haven't made this very understandable, nor reasonable. But it had a rhythm, and so I thought I would put it out there._

_Be sure to check out Dead as Folk! Queer as Folk and zombies, what's not to love?_


End file.
